Washing Handknits

I had a knitting scare yesterday. I was blocking the above glove in warm soapy water and the red color of Knitpicks' Palette started bleeding. With a white background this could have spelled disaster for the color pattern. I quickly grabbed the glove and immediately put it on a towel to block but I still think I can see a bit of bleeding on the white near the bottom of the glove.

It was so weird because I'd never had this happen with Palette before. I wonder if there are ever "rogue" skeins of yarn that bleed dye or are dyed differently?? This happened once before with Nature Spun sport weight and my Pablo Neruda socks. I'd used Nature Spun a zillion times but the purple color bled near the foot on one sock when I was washing them and ruined them. Here are the socks before that fateful moment.



I'm also not sure if this was a current skein of Palette or one from several years ago. I'm getting another batch of Palette soon and I'll do tests with it before I proceed. Anyway, the gloves above combine three of my favorite knitting things: 1) lots of colors, 2) knitted letters, and 3) those wonderful Norwegian charts of people holding hands. I plan to add some embroidery to them as well to add even more colors.

In my continuing efforts to collect all the purple colors of Wool of the Andes and Peruvian Highland wool, here is the offering from Elann (along with some gray for DH's socks).






I just realized that Easter is next Sunday! So it is again time for my usual public service message. Rabbits are delicate creatures, they can live a long time, require as much care as dogs and cats (I consider them higher-maintenance actually), spaying/neutering them is not inexpensive, etc., etc, etc. Please pass the word along so the shelters aren't filled with discarded children's pet Easter rabbits again this year. Chocolate Easter bunnies are definitely the way to go!

The Ozzard of Wiz

The sock pixie lives in the land of the Ozzard of Wiz! (Thank you Skye for the most wonderful name one could think of.) In my land there is yarn everywhere. There is yarn politely sitting in a beautiful basket in the living room, pretending to be disciplined. There is yarn in the bottom drawer of every chest. That is the special time out place for the yarn that misbehaves. There is yarn in all handbags, that's the emergency yarn, the one you pull out when the weird dude won't stop starring at you on the train! There is yarn in the school book shelf, that's the study yarn. There is yarn in the basement, and that's the yarn for the day the world will come to an end. Some people store food and gold, the great Ozzard stores yarn. There is occasionally a project attached to the yarn, in this case socks, but I also know of a few sweaters which are all in time out at the moment!

In the land of the Ozzard of Wiz, there is no need for heat. As long as it is above 40 degrees outside, there will be no heat. The great Ozzard (which might be me) loves to take draconian heating measures, and the values of layering, and wearing sweaters are highly praised. House guests are usually a little surprised at first. They are watched carefully, in case they turn purple before they can reach for a sweater. On a good day, you can even see the great wizzard in her magical coat and scarf inside the house, knitting frantically. "To try and keep her hands warm?" some evil witches would ask.

In the land of the Ozzard of Wiz, the littlest fairy lost her first tooth yesterday, and the great Ozzard started crying in the middle of the street, kissing her pixie which was a baby no more. In this great land, the tooth fairy has odd working hours. If the tooth was lost after 6p.m. she cannot come that night because she did not get enough advanced warning. Sometimes, she outsources the work because she is so busy, and then we run into terrible problems, with incredibly long delays in delivery. Sometimes it seems to the little pixies, and elves that she has not come. They look and they look, and cannot find anything under their pillow. They go eat their breakfast, slightly disappointed, but come back up to their room, after some convincing by the great Ozzard to find that the toothfairy had left something and they just had not looked carefully enough...

In the land of the Ozzard of Wiz, there is a sock factory. One pair is barely finished that another one is started. The socks for the most wonderful mother in law are finished, and socks for the almost 11 year old little elf are in progress. Sometimes the Ozzard loves to just knit the same thing over and over again, but yesterday the wind must have been blowing from a different direction, for she started to knit socks with a seeded rib pattern for the elf, and she just loves it.


In the land of the Ozzard of Wiz, house projects often get sidetracked, and delayed but eventually completed, as will be the case with the living room. It is rarely the case with laundry however, that is always sidetracked! And there is an axplanation for that too! The Sock Monster is responsible. See, the great Ozzard and the Sock Monster have been at war, one producing socks, the other one devouring them. The great Ozzard's war tactics include limiting casualties to a maximum, i.e. as little confrontation as possible, so very little laundry, and a lot of troop buid up, so knit as many socks as possible!

In the land of the Ozzard of Wiz there are some days that are harder than others, mostly because the great Ozzard was up too late knitting, or in this case reading the new Yarn Harlot book...

Gracie's Quilt

I met my friend Gracie in college. We both lived in International House at Illinois State University and we soon realized we shared many classes because we were both French majors. We've kept in touch over the years via email and I know she is an excellent and addicted quilter.

Anyway, yesterday a box arrived from Gracie. I'm having trouble photographing the incredible and bright colors but this quilt is by far the most incredible handmade gift I've ever received.

The little patch says the quilt pattern is Flamenco and the fabrics are Kaffe Fassett. I don't think she could have chosen better for my tastes - I love touching it and staring at the colors and the stitching. DH wants to hang it in our living room so I'll get a better photo once we do so.

Of Cars, and Bent Needles

I will not hide that I have my ups and downs and that little things can get me bent out of shape. There is something about Bostonians and cars. Really! They wake up, probably all nice and pleasant, dress up quietly, so as not to wake their sleeping children up, they drink the coffee lovingly prepared by their spouse, they get dressed, paying attention to the details, after all this is one of the most European cities in America, they give a kiss good-bye, they close the door, and go to open the door of their car. And there, at that very moment something happens. They go completely insane. Nothing can stop them anymore. They will go as fast as they can out of their spot, they will zoom away, and they will get there, before the other million people who are posessed by the same demon. They will drive, at full speed, up one way streets. By the way, school buses are not exempt from that either. They will ignore all lights. When parked and trying to get out, they will bump the car in front and the car in the back. When you are crossing, they will show not intent of slowing down, but rather honk at you madly, and swerve around you. Bostonians know no white line. If they miss an exit, no problem, they go across all the lanes, in a mad dash to make that exit!!! They have to be under some sort of magic spell. They will stop at nothing to get the car going, and it can sometimes be a very difficult thing. A few weeks ago we had a snow storm, followed by rain, and then the temperature dropped. Everything froze. The cars, parked along the streets, had about a foot of completely frozen snow around them. I saw women, in high heels, with their little Louis Vuitton purses, pulling little hammers out of their purses, and delicately trying to "ting-ting-ting" hammer the ice. I saw people sit in their cars pushing on the pedal madly to get the car to jump out of its ice cage. I was also saw people dig their car out, but only to bury the car in from of them. Don't think that I just stand there and do nothing. I actually help. This poor man, was desperate, he could not open the car door, and was hopolessly blowing on the key hole, and I got him hot water to try and thaw the lock. The lock thawed, and without as much as a thank you, he sat in the car, and turned out to be the one who tried to make his car jump out of the ice!
While all this goes on, I sit in my comfy chair, a cup of coffee by my side, a pair of socks on the needles, and I watch. Sometimes I have to get up, knock on the window, in particular when a posessed driver starts dumping all the ice and snow in front on my front steps, which I just spent time cleaning in the freezing weather!
Enough of cars for today.


The living room is going to take a little longer than I thought. I managed to finish the second coat on the two walls. That leaves me with a lot of trim.Oh well, I guess there is no rush. It's not like John Kerry is going to drop by for a visit any time soon!


My mother in law's second sock is at the toe, but I don't know what happened to my needle! I left the sock on the kitchen counter last night to go for a walk with Rolfe, and when I cam back the needle was completely bent. I asked the kids, but nobody seems to know anything about it. It almost looks like they did not even know I knit! The conversation sounded kind of like this: "Did something happen to my knitting while I was out?" Response: "What knitting?". "You know, the socks for Inge." "No, I don't know, where were they?" "In the kitchen." " I disn't see them there, and I didn't go to the kitchen." Now if only one of the children repeated these words to me, I could tell which one had a little something to do with the socks, but they all repeat the same thing. I should not have had them all read the Three Musketeers!


Talking about musketeers, makes me think of super heroes, and I think I'll just end my post today with a picture of Skye as "Super Grandma!"

I think these latest thick hiking socks for DH are really ugly but a) I wanted to use up all the Cormo I had so I had to do two-tone, b) they won't look two-tone when he wears his hiking boots and c) DH likes them. Boy doing 9" of K2P2 ribbing for each sock is certainly fun. Not.



Spring has sprung. This photo shows the buds on the lilac bush.



Blogging may be sporadic this week as we will have visitors. I will have to keep an eye on the brown large-eared one to make sure she doesn't use this excuse to beg for extra food.

Early Morning Thoughts

I am sitting in my room, the curtains are open, and the sun is rising. Through the windows, against the backdrop of the blue grey sky, with its touch of red eyeliner, I see houses everywhere and the tops of the Boston skyscrapers. That is life. You know for a city, Boston is remarkably quiet at night. It is actually way quieter than Petaluma, where the sounds of the highway seemed to wake me up every night at 4 a.m., and I did not even live close to the highway! Here it is the rising sun that wakes me up every morning.
This morning, I decided to change my routine a little. From now on, I will get up at 5 a.m. with Rolfe, prepare his lunch, and will have my coffee with him. This way I'll spend one extra hour with him everyday. And then, once he leaves I can get to my writing for an hour, and then take care of the family, and be ready to start our school day at 8 a.m.
Now for the update on the house... I am still not done with the living room. I did take the day off from painting on Saturday, but got right back to it on Sunday. Two walls still need a second coat of paint, as well as the odd pillar that sits in the middle of the room, the mirrored cabinet needs a second coat of semi-gloss, and one door needs everything. Well, what do you think, two more days? Then I have to tackle the covers for the chairs my parents gave me, you know the ones in the picture in the previous post. I have been debating between slipcovers, and upholstering. I found the nicest velvety fabric, in a smashing blue color, covered with my favorite flowers, tulips. I have enough fabric for either solution. If you have any thoughts please leave a comment. Any suggestion on how to make a cover are also welcome! I am starting to chew my nails just thinking about it!
I will not procrastinate. NO, I will tackle the task, and be done, and I will not get side tracked by any other project, like a lovely sock. There, that is said.
Talking about socks, well I am slightly behind schedule on my mother in law's socks. I finished the first one, and am on the gusset decreases on the second one. I know that she will love them, even if I am a few days late. While I was working on the socks, I was thinking about how nice it was to knit gifts. Gifts that you take the time to knit, or crochet, or paint, are so much more meaningful than store bought ones. I don't know if it is just because while you work on the project you think about the person you are making it for, or if it's just that you took the time. I find so much value in not rushing through life, so much that you feel rushed to pick a present. It is so easy to just fall prey to the lure of speed and efficiency.You jump in the car, drive off, drop the kids at their activities, run to the store, grab a present and rush back to pick up the kids, stopping at the grocery store to pick up a quick fix meal. I live at a slower pace. Those of you who know me well, know that I don't know how to drive. I live at the pace of my walk. The children and I walk to the library, the grocery store. We may not "do" as much in a day, but we take the time to breathe, and look around us. We take the time to cook meals, we take the time to study, to read, and of course to knit.
In the time that I have been writing, the sky has turned light blue, the red eyeliner has disappeared, I can see people walking in the street, my day has started.

Just in case you thought that was the only knitting I have clogging up the armoire, here's the growing pile of items to be given away next Christmas.



And here is the pile of items knit for booklets. I figure I should keep these although I have friends who are always trying to abscond with them. I have a vision of my next crafts room having a large corkboard so I can hang them up and enjoy the colors.



I'm amazed at how many of you save little bits of yarn. I already have quite a few tiny bits of yarn because of all the color knitting I do. I will have to come up with some new methods for storage because they always become tangled if I just toss them in a container or drawer.

I put a new post up on the Glove Knitting KAL on figuring out your hand size for knitting patterns. If any of you know your hand size for purchasing gloves will you check it out please? I'm trying to see if there are any others who have differences in their commercial glove size vs. knitting pattern hand size. Thanks!

Does anyone else have trouble throwing away knitting mistakes? Here is a pile of various items I've knit, mostly unfinished, that I gave up on because I hated the colors or just hated knitting period. DH didn't like the blue and white Selbu glove. I don't really know why I have to hold on to this stuff (in sewing I guess they call similarly unloved items "wadders") but I guess it is because they all represent a piece of my life in some sense. Anyway, now that I have a photo I'm free to toss them.

Doesn't Jack look like he is contemplating his fat cat belly? I adore him but he is not the brightest bulb in the chandelier.

I finally found a use for those bags you get when you order Victoria's Secret flannel PJs. I like to keep the colors for each knitting project separate and each of these bags holds the content of one glove project. One bag contains 10 skeins of yarn and one contains 20. (BTW, never pay full price for VS flannel PJs. The discontinued patterns go on sale for under $20 every few months.)




This is what I saw every time I looked down from the desk while working hard on the glove booklet.



Like any self-respecting rabbit, she begged for food shamelessly while I was preoccupied with the booklet. Plus DH & I are noticing she double teams us more frequently. I'll feed her and then she'll immediately go to DH and beg for something to eat. I'm definitely going to have to work harder to enforce the bunny diet.

Progress

I have made definite progress, and would say I am about half way done with the living dining room. I of course could not resist the temptation to start arranging some of the furniture in the finished area. What do you think? These two chairs are some of the chairs that my parents brought to me. They were actually my first pieces of furniture ever. I am so happy to have them back. It makes my home feel like home. The first place that I had was of course a lot smaller than my current house. It was a tiny apartment in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, overlooking a courtyard. The walls were a soft linen white, the floors, a honey wood, and it got the softest filtered light, and actually when I think about it, my house reminds me of my first apartment. The light here is the artist's delight. It makes my yarn look glorious.





The other side of the room is not quite there. And once again a picture is worth a thousand words...














I did find the time to knit last night, and made some progress on my mother in law's socks.













I also had to start something else. Here is a peek at it. Soft, fuzzy baby alpaca, and the coolest pattern, (I am desgning it, and taking great note!) and of course it's a sock!

I 'm currently unable to get a photo of the glove booklet cover into my sidebar. I actually had an artsy photo for the booklet cover of the glove on an Adirondack chair with the mountains in the background but Lulu said it was the wrong size. So instead I just stuffed everything in the scanner as I've done with the other booklets.



Oh no! My new gloves don't fit. No really these are just another pair of thick boring hiking socks for DH. He insists upon 9" of K2P2 ribbing for every pair which is torture. I'm knitting them simultaneously because I am going to run out of one of the shades of undyed Cormo yarn. The feet will be a lighter color.

Sorry I did not write on Friday, but as you know my parents' furniture was arriving and so did a huge snow storm, but let's start from the beginning. I talked to the truck driver on Thursday night, and he said: "I'll call you at 7:30 a.m. to tell you if I can deliver with the storm. If I can, I'll be there at 9." I let my parents know, and I went to sleep after setting up my alarm clock for 7 a.m. At 7:20 a.m., I got a call from my mother, which I could only imagine was frantic, in her nightgown, hair standing straight up on her head, glasses askew, "Caroline, le chauffeur est la!!!" (the driver, is here.) I said I was on my way, I hung up, and dashed upstairs, swearing at every step, and of course, in my great hurry forgot about step number 7, the one that is half the width of the other, and crashed. I heard a voice coming from upstairs: "Are you OK?" I slammed the wall with my fist, composed my voice, and said: "I'm fine, thank you." You know, once a lady, always a lady.
I put on whatever clothes I could find, and since I could not find my socks borrowed Rolfe's, and ran out the door.
The driver was this little, elderly man, who was convinced my parents could not understand a word he was saying. He seemed relieved to see me, in particular when it came to explaining to my parents how one of their antique chairs had a broken foot. I stood for 5 hours outside giving directions to the delivery people, directing them to one room or another. In my great hurry, however, I had forgotten about hat, gloves, and scarf. The temperature was about 25 degrees F. The snow was starting to fall, increasing gradually to light blizzard strength. To keep warm I climbed inside the truck, I even started unloading stuff. I think the guys were very surprised, to see this little French woman in high heels ( I forgot to tell you that of course, I picked light leather high heel shoes for the delivery!) pushing and carrying boxes!
My parents were happy to be setting up their new home, and I got to help them, which made me happy.

The rest of the day was great, as it was snowing so much. The kids had never seen so much snow fall at once, and we went for quite a few walks during the day and in the evening to be able to enjoy the blizzard fully! It did take a 30 minute boiling shower to thaw me!



On the painting front, things are going well, but I am feeling some sense of urgency. Alexandra's cello teacher is coming in a few hours and the living room looks...interesting... To make things a little more confusing, my parents actually returned some of my French furniture to me now that I have a big house, and room to put it. In any case a picture is worth a thousand words.





On the sock front, I decided to knit a pair of socks for my mother in law's birthday on the 23rd of this month, which means that each time I put my paint brush down, I will knit a row, actually each time my hands are free I will be knitting a row... As of now this is how far I am with the socks. Rolfe does seem a little concerned about the deadline...

Glove Knitting Booklet

The glove booklet is finished and for sale at my Lulu store. Catchy title, eh? It is 36 pages, all-color, with over 50 photos, diagrams and charts including a gallery of gloves that don't fit. The price is $18.38 for print or $8.75 for a .PDF file. You can also email me at nanetteblanchard (at) earthlink (dot) net if you would prefer to pay by check - Lulu takes both credit cards and Paypal.

I originally wanted to add more glove patterns but I had to work to keep the price down (all-color booklets are more expensive to print). I plan to add more glove patterns (including one with individual finger gussets) to the store individually at a later date.

HERE is the book's info page and HERE is the KAL page for either of the glove patterns from the booklet. Please let me know if you'd like to sign up for the KAL - one thing I thought we could do is get KAL members to upload photos of their hands so we could talk about modifications to make their hand-knit gloves fit better.

The Yarn Harlot is coming to Northampton!

The Yarn Harlot is coming to Northampton, which is only a couple hours away from me, and is also the home of my school, Smith College. I have told Rolfe, he is renting a zip car, and we are going! This will definitely be a memorable date, both for me and Rolfe! I just thought I would mention it, since I had been whining so much about not being able to see her in Petaluma. And thank you oh Knitting Gods for answering my knitting prayers!

Geometric Gloves

The world's largest caterpillar stopped by to say hello while I was photographing the second glove I'm doing for the booklet.


These gloves have a sore thumb gusset and tapered fingertips and the fingers are worked in the opposite direction as the gloves with the colorwork cuffs from a few days ago. This is a woman's medium and you'll need 2 (50 g) skeins of black in Knitpicks Palette and small amounts of white and 6 other contrast colors.



This is the men's medium version of the same glove knit in Elann's Devon sport weight wool which is nice and soft and stretchy but a bit finer than most sport weight yarns. To knit the men's glove you need one skein mineral green and two skein of Cape Cod blue. Unfortunately neither of these colors is currently available at Elann but there are some other fun Devon colors.



The colorwork cuff gloves with the peasant thumb require 2 (50 g) skeins of Knitpicks' Palette in the main color and small amounts of 9 other colors for the cuff for both the small and large woman's sizes.

For those who plan to knit these gloves on dpns (instructions will also be given for 2 circs), I highly recommend you buy some glove needles from 4" to 6" long. I am amazed at how much faster I can knit glove fingers when using shorter needles. There will be more sources in the booklet but Spin Blessing and Patternworks have the largest selections of glove needles in various materials. My glove needles of choice are the extremely inexpensive Inox/Prym dpns from Spin Blessing - not too slick and not too sticky and unbreakable so far. If you can, get glove needles in all sizes from 2.5mm to 3.5 mm as you'll find you need the variations. Many knitters use a different size dpn for the fingers because of tension differences in knitting small tubes.

I still want to knit another version of each glove but I hope to have the glove booklet for sale by this weekend.

Yesterday

Yesterday was an interesting day, and definitely a character building day. It was a day when the rooster in me was pushed out of its coop, and it "cocoricoed". The zen knitter, however did not quite make it. It all started when I got up to find the coffee machine had once again backed up. Now this would be OK, if it was not the second coffee machine I had had to buy in three months. The first one turned out to be a mission impossible, and auto-destructed. The second one, and mind you not the same brand just backs up all over the counter on a regular basis. I think I may be switching to tea. I have great trust in the old tea pot!

After cleaning the coffee disaster, I turned to the other counter to find a note by Rolfe telling me that the new printer I purchased only the day before was missing its USB cable. I called the people at the store and told them. I also told them that since I did not want to return the printer, but only wanted a USB cable, could I just stop by with my receipt, instead of having to haul that 3 ton box all the way back. The charming attendant's answer was a question. "Was it an open box?" Well, it must have been opened at one point, but there was a large quantity of tape, and stickers saying it had been inspected by the store staff. Her answer, was that it was obviously their mistake, and I would have to bring the whole thing back, and be sure to have the receipt, or they would not be able to help, because I guess, how could they know that the box covered with their ugly labels, and with computerized labels, had indeed come from their store!!!! I just don't get the system here. It is a system where it is obviously their mistake, and I have to go through all the extra trouble to correct it!

The sun was shining outside, and it was a comfy 60 degrees, so I decided to let it all go. I would just go by another USB cable, and not worry about the whole thing. So the kids and I went to get a cable, we walked along the park, looked at the beautiful geese, threw sticks in the river, had a burger, and then decided it was time to go home. That is when all hell broke loose. In our local transportation system, children under the age of 11 ride free with an adult carrying a monthly pass. So as I always do, I lined up the kids ahead of me, put my pass in, the gates opened, and then I heard a screaming voice "COME BACK, YOU COME BACK RIGHT NOW". I turned, and at my surprise, the lady in uniform was "addressing" me. She told me, I had to buy another ticket, as only two of the kids could ride free. I told her this was not what I had been told. She yelled even louder that I had to come back, and buy another ticket. I gathered the kids, and walked back through the machines. I tried to tell her again that I was told differently, and that the three children could ride free if I had a pass. I say tried because she kept insisting I had to buy another ticket, and would not listen. I then asked her to show me the written fare schedules. The yelled answer was "I DON'T HAVE TO SHOW YOU NOTHING, YOU DO WHAT I TELL YOU!" I put the grammarian in me aside, and told her I was quite willing to purchase the extra ticket, my credit card in hand, but could she show me the fare schedule. I don't really remember what her exact words were after that, I just remember being cornered between her and the ticket machines, and her screaming angry voice echoing throughout the station. So I joined in, it was the only way I could put a word in and tell her that she could not yell at a customer like that. She finally walked away, I bought the ticket, because I am honest. When I tried to go through the gates again, this time my ticket did not work, because it stops working if inserted in the machine more than once in a certain amount of time. She royally ignored the problem, and truly I was not about to ask her for help. I dragged the kids, who at that point were all in tears, and we walked to the next station. I did call the public transportation customer service, confirmed that children ride free with an adult carrying a pass, advised them to post their fare schedules visibly around, and make sure their employees are aware of them. Needless to say I was very upset about the whole thing.

Now that I think about it, it is kind of funny, and in some ways so predictable. I should have remembered that there is no point trying to convince a person who thinks that because they wear a badge they know everything. When she started yelling I should have just dialed the customer service number, and started knitting my socks while I was on hold, gotten the answer, and then have had the customer service representative repeat the correct fare info to her. That is what the perfect zen knitter would have done! Knitting socks, is the answer to all problems!

I spent the rest of the day knitting. Rolfe's socks in the Claudia Argyle colorway are now finished. They are nice, even if I was a little frustrated by the differences between the hanks of the same dye lot. I know that hand-dyed yarns are unique, but having each sock, and in my case each leg, and each toe uniquely different might be pushing it a little! I asked Rolfe if he would mind beeing the man with the sock of a different color, but he reassured me, and said he would love them, and that if anyone noticed, they would be looking at his socks way too closely. That reconciled me with the socks, and I now look at them as artistic variations on a theme!

I cast on the stitches for Paul-Hugo's socks using the lovely Jojoland Melody in the blue colorway (the one that matches the new colors in the kitchen!)
I will not have that much time to knit today as it is now the dining room/living room's turn to be painted. The two rooms are almost as big as my whole California house! There goes another week...

Favorite Online Glove Patterns

I've posted a few of these before but here is the complete list of my favorite online glove patterns:

Cigar Gloves - This thick pair of men’s gloves knit with two circular needles has two open fingers for cigar smoking.

Floral Fair Isle Gloves - This attractive pair of gloves from Interweave Knits is knit with many colors of fingering weight Shetland wool.

Gansey Gloves - These incredibly beautiful gloves are perfect for knitters who love texture. Must. Make. These. Gloves.

Gloves in Karisma - A pretty Drops design using I think DK weight yarn for gloves with 2 cables and a seed stitch border.

Guatemalan Gloves Free Knitting Pattern - This gorgeous pair of 14 color gloves comes in five sizes depending on what weight yarn you use.

House Gloves - This simple pattern with striped fingers uses worsted weight yarn. The pattern includes instructions for using dpns, 2 circs, and the Magic Loop method to knit gloves.

I-Cord Gloves - This serial pattern from Nonaknits features I-cord fingers, top-down construction and Joyce William's fun technique for in between the fingers.

Ken Gloves - This Berroco pattern is sized for men and knit with a thick yarn.

Sanquhar Gloves - These traditional Scottish Gloves using lace weight yarn are considered the pinnacle of glove making. This incredible pattern is from a Japanese knitting web site and is error-free.

Sideways Gloves - If you can't decide whether to knit your gloves cuff-up or top-down, try making them sideways.

Starlight Evening Gloves - These long gloves use an eyelet pattern and a decorative seam.

Opera Glove - This pattern for elbow length pair of gloves has good photos on how to pick up stitches from a peasant thumb.

Wedding Day Lace Gloves - This beautiful lacy pair of long gloves is perfect for a bride.

Women's Lace Gloves - Nifty vintage pattern for gloves. I made these a long time ago (I have the vintage pattern booklet) and they turned out beautifully.

And if you prefer to design your own gloves:

Hand Knit Glove Pattern Generator - Simply plug in your hand measurements at this web site and you’ll get a pattern written for your size.

Lynn’s Gloves - This valuable web site is a template that shows you how to design your own knitted gloves similar to using Elizabeth Zimmermann's Percentage System for sweaters.

The kitchen... I absolutely love it! It is not quite finished, one more dreadful cabinet door to paint, and the trim to finish and it will be done. How did I do it so fast? I will answer with another question? What do you do when you hate painting the doors? YOU REMOVE THEM!!! Ah, ah! That's what they call the "system D" in France. I sewed some curtains to create storage areas, and bought jars to store the goods in the shelves. Here are a few pictures, but please ignore the open electrical boxes, that's next on my list.
Now why the bread box picture? This morning as soon as my favorite little pixie walked in the kitchen to ask for her breakfast, she looked at the strange object, and said, pointing, " What's that, Mom?" I responded it was a breadbox, and slid the lid open to reveal the golden bread inside. She immediately said: "I want toast!" Her enthusiasm made me realize that bread in a plastic bag, or cereal in a cardboard box, does not do the food justice. It made such a difference in the kitchen. The grains, cereals, beans, cookies, spices and teas, all seem to sit proudly on their shelves, warming the kitchen with their golden tones. Food is as much a pleasure for the eyes as it is for the mouth. You know, when I think about it, I transformed the kitchen into a yarn store!

Top Down Gloves

I probably shouldn't have used dark brown yarn for the photos of the Joyce Williams' glove technique from her book Latvian Dreams. Oh well. Above is a photo taken after the fingers are joined.

To begin you knit the fingers top-down on two circs. Leave the bottom stitches live on waste yarn and mark each finger so you don't get them mixed up.



Next you transfer the front half of the stitches of each finger to one circ and the back half of the stitches of each finger to the other circ. (This differs from the usual method of knitting top-down gloves where you would leave the stitches in between each finger on waste yarn and use kitchener stitch to join the fingers together later.) Make sure the fingers are in the right order as it is pretty easy to get them mixed up.

Now here comes the interesting part. You knit across all three fingers but when you get to the area where two fingers meet on the inner edge of each finger, you put one stitch on a coilless safety pin to be knit on the other side and continue knitting across. On the second half of the stitches (the other circ) you pick up and knit those stitches on the coilless safety pin and put more stitches on the coilless safety pins to be picked up on the other side. Essentially what you are doing is transferring stitches from the front of the glove to the back and vice versa where the fingers meet.

Initially I thought this would mean that the circumference around the base of the fingers would end up really tight but the fingers felt fine to me. It really is a clever way of omitting potential holes (from large or loose stitches) between the fingers for top-down glove knitters. Thanks to Jennifer from the comments for her enthusiastic recommendation of this method.

The two glove patterns are done and now I'm just re-knitting them to try to avoid any errors and to add some sizes. I'll have a photo of the second glove tomorrow or Tuesday. The technique section of the booklet is finished except for a final edit and my big project for this week is to try to get as many photos and scans as possible.

Peaches is still shedding fiercely and is also becoming quite the handful. Even spayed house rabbits go a little wild when spring arrives and her bunny energy has probably tripled. Her new favorite activity is pulling books out of the bookshelves to munch on.

Sorry I don't have the glove photos today. My excuse is that the second glove pattern for the booklet is driving me completely insane. I've knit the thumb gusset over and over in different patterns, I've done about 30 configurations for the division of the finger stitches, and it is not even a complex pattern. At least I'm in the final stretch of the booklet and I think I'm going to make DH take me out for a fancy Japanese dinner when I finish.

Am I Obsessed?

Yesterday, I told you I was painting the kitchen cabinets in a color called wedgewood gray. Each time I looked at the lovely color, I would exclaim, how new, and fresh for the house, I don't think I have ever picked a color like that. I was so proud to show how innovative I had been to my husband when he came home from work. He looked at the color, smiled, opened the dishwasher, and out of it came a lovely wedgewood gray cup! He then walked to my knitting basket, and pulled up two very wedgewood gray balls of yarn! He went upstairs, to our bedroom, and brought back a pillow case in wedgewood grey... What can I say, I did not even realize I was obsessed!

The Spring Makeover

The spring makeover is well under way. I decided to put the final touch on the kitchen first however. The kitchen is lovely as it is, my husband would probably say, but to me there is something dreary about the honey cabinetry and the brownish walls. Solution? Paint. It took three coats on the walls after primer, for the linen white to cover the brown. Lovely wedgewood grey paint was chosen for the cabinets, that is 2 coats of the lovely color, on top of primer, after sanding, and deep cleaning. It is my second day working on the cabinetry. The bottom half is almost done, and I now have one more door to paint, before I tackle the upper cabinets. If the weather stays as dry as it is, I should be done by the end of Saturday. By the way, that is the great thing about this area. Winter air is so dry, that paint dries in the blink of an eye. I hear summers are, shall we say, SLIGHTLY more humid here! I have chosen lovely knobs and handles for the cabinets, but they will have to come up last. Once that is done, I will give a fresh coat of paint to the window trims, and baseboards, and the kitchen will look wonderful, which will undoubtedly make the living room and dining room look terrible, since they still have that lovely shade of brown that the previous inhabitants of the house seemed to be very fond of. You have guessed what I will be doing starting Sunday.

Today's Glove Hall of Shame features the very first pair of gloves I made for DH. I'm guessing these are at least 15 years old because I bought the wool fingering weight yarn from Kmart.

The glove appeared to fit when DH models it so I could not for the life of me figure out what the problem was for a very long time.



Looking closer at the glove you can see that the fingers are freakishly short although that wasn't the cause of the problem. The real problem was that I added about 1 1/2" more than necessary between the base of the thumb and the base of the little finger.




To fix this problem when you are making gloves for someone else, simply hold up the glove in progress to the drawing you've made of their hand. That way you can start the base of the fingers at exactly the right spot.



(BTW, try to measure the person's dominant hand for gloves because it is usually larger and more muscular.)

Maia had an excellent question in the comments. She wondered if you can put the pinkie stitches on waste yarn and knit the extra rows of the hand - i.e., doing it in reverse from the way I talked about. I never thought about it but yes, there is no reason you couldn't do it this way and it would be less fiddly and faster.

I think the sequence you do the fingers is a matter of personal preference. About half the glove patterns I see have you knitting the index finger first and the half instruct you to do the little finger first. All glove patterns I've seen instruct you to knit the thumb last. I usually knit the little finger and then the thumb so I have an anchor on each side of the glove to better measure the base of the other fingers. If you're doing a peasant thumb and you have no opening for the thumb stitches, you should knit the thumb before most of the other fingers just so you can try the glove on while knitting.

Jennifer has asked if I've tried Joyce William's unique glove construction method and I'll have photos of that method tomorrow.

I Know Spring is Coming

I know spring is coming... This morning I woke up, opened my eyes, and thought I am going to finish, or should I say start decorating and setting up my room. I decided I needed paint, yards of gros-grain ribbon for the curtains, fabric to dress up the doorless closet, I could put the bedside tables together, and maybe add a single painting on the wall, I could also try to finish the wood floor trim, and choose some plants. All this to say, that spring has to be coming. Decorating is somewhat like making a nest. I am a bird, excitedly preparing my home! And I know it has to be true. My next door neighbor has been adding curtains to her windows, plants in pots, the yarn harlot is redoing her bedroom floors... I always find it amazing that we all think of the same thing at the same time, that we even do the same things at the same time. So maybe this morning it was the light or the air, I don't know, but I am on a mission, and by George, I will get my bedroom ready, and I will finish setting up the rest of the house, and I will landscape the whole yard, and, and, and...!!! I feel like Napoleon, unstoppable! But of course first, I have to go get the paint, which means a long walk in the freezing weather... Somehow, the weather as not quite figured out that spring has come!

Another Day, Another Pair of Socks

All right, maybe another "day" is slightly extreme. It does take me a little more time than that to knit a pair of socks! My baby girl is modeling her new pair of simple stockinette socks. They were knit with Koigu Yarn, and they are a perfect shade of purple for my darling little pixie. I am working on another pair of socks for my husband, and that as we know will take me a little longer! I had to put the lace sock away temporarily, as I absolutely (uhm..) had to start designing a pair of socks with intricate color work.

It is not Fair...

No, it is really not fair. I was getting my daily dose of the yarn harlot, when what do I see on her site, that she will be visiting Petaluma's Copperfield's bookstore on June 7th. I JUST MOVED OUT OF PETALUMA!!!!!! I spent almost every free minute of my time at Copperfields... This is enough to make you wonder if the heavens are trying to send you a message. Should I move back to Petaluma? Well, I guess not, but I am disappointed that I will not get to hear her talk. I hope she comes to Boston soon though. In the mean time, my Petaluma friends I hope you all go see her, and have a great time.

Colorblock Gloves

This photo shows the glove fix I talked about when the base of the little finger is lower than the base of the other fingers. I've knitted several rows even after knitting the finger and I stop right when I get to the webbing between my ring and middle finger. Then the finger knitting resumes.



These gloves are actually the same size but the orange ones have extra length between the color pattern and thumb base. The orange ones are also still a bit damp from blocking. I think the rounded fingertip shaping shown here looks more anatomical than the tapered fingertips usually done on colorwork gloves.

I still have at least four more of these gloves (in more colors of Knitpicks' Palette) to knit before the pattern will be ready. I want to change the numbers slightly for the index and middle finger and I want to also knit them using two circular needles. This is the small size and I still need to do a larger size.

I've also started the second glove pattern using Elann's Devon yarn. Devon is labeled a sport weight but it is quite fine. I'm curious to see what it will look like knitted up on the suggested size 4 (US) needles. The second glove pattern will have a color pattern throughout the hand and fingers, a sore thumb gusset, and will have sizing up to a men's large.

My Favorite Glove Knitting Tip

Here's one of my favorite glove knitting tips. If you diagram the finger stitches, you can greatly speed up your knitting. Once you understand the fingertip shaping you no longer have to read through the long pattern each time you get to a new finger. Instead just consult your nifty diagram.


This is the diagram for the peasant gloves I'm working on. Each circle represents a finger (starting with the thumb slightly below on the left going all the way to the little finger on the far right) and the number inside the circle represents the total number of stitches used for each finger.

The numbers above and below the circles in blue are the stitches that you put on dpns after being held on waste yarn and the numbers in red are the stitches you either cast on or pick up from the previous finger to get your total stitch count.

I've been thinking ahead to future knitting once I finish the glove booklet. This week I made 3 purchases that I'm greatly anticipating. First, I purchased some of Anne's gorgeous handspun yarn at her new shop, Wooly Wonka Fibers. I bought the alpaca, wool, and silk yarn from her scarf knitting kit and I plan to use it for more hiking socks for DH.

Secondly I purchased Terri's new self-published book Selbuvotter on one of my favorite subjects - Nordic gloves and mittens. I just love the cover design of the book. If you pre-purchase the book in March you get free shipping.

Finally, I purchased some terrific colorwork sock patterns from Red Bird Knits. I chose the Andes, Winter Dreams, and Noel designs and I already own the Holly Berry design.

I think those projects should keep me out of trouble for a while. I also purchased more of Elann's Peruvian Highland Wool in my continuing efforts to get all the purple, blue, and green shades I can find.

There is a problem with the fit of these gloves. See if you can figure out how to fix this problem. (Answer at end of this post.)



I really hope to find a lot of different types of hands to try on the gloves for the booklet so I can use photos of gloves that don't fit. I think the best way to learn how to knit better-fitting gloves is to see what it looks like when they don't fit well.



Other than that I like the fit of these gloves for my particular hands. They're done in Knitpicks' Palette which may be the best yarn for gloves of all time.

I am currently planning on doing two main patterns - one pattern for some peasant thumb gloves with rounded fingertips as seen here and one pattern for some sore thumb gloves with tapered fingertips. I hope to do several sizes of each, possibly with some interchangeable pattern charts, to include gloves for men and women.

Answer - The gloves shown here have that little bunch under the little finger not because the little finger is too short but because the base of my little finger is 1/2" lower than the base of my index finger. (This anatomical difference isn't true for all hands but it is true for many of the hands I've seen.)

Most glove patterns I see don't account for this issue but the fix is to knit the little finger, then put all the hand stitches back on dpns (while picking up the cast on stitches for the little finger) and knit a few rows even, then go back to working the rest of the fingers. If you are often pulling the fingers on your hand knit gloves down so that the intersections between the fingers on the glove touch the webbing between your fingers, this is likely the problem.

Free Patterns

Peaches has recently figured out how to open the bottom kitchen cabinets and she keeps pulling stuff out in her tireless search for something to eat. This morning I found her playing with the lid to my rice cooker. She doesn't care what mayhem she creates. Ever since she was voted Best Blog Pet she thinks she can do no wrong.




I have all my free knitting patterns from the blog posted in the sidebar but I've been meaning to post links to some of my other older knitting patterns. Not all have photos (other knitters provided the photos) but most of them are pretty simple and fast.

Bobble Washcloth (photo)
Garter Stitch Lace Facecloth (photo)
Raised Triangles Washcloth (photo)
Tiny Cables Washcloth (photo)
Zigzag Lace Facecloth (photo)
Garter Stitch Eyelet Facecloth (photo)
Super Fast and Easy Spiral Rib Socks
Balaclava

Speaking of balaclava patterns - go check out Desiknitter's cool free balaclava pattern.